METHOT: Outdoor scofflaws not the brightest

I figured I was toast, canned, axed and fired just a week into my dream job as a young editor for Outdoor Life magazine.

I had my own office, name on the door in midtown Manhattan, picking apart nationally known writers with a slash of my blue pencil.

The big time, baby.

And I saw it all going down the drain while being grilled by a game warden in a mountain cabin in Pennsylvania a long time ago. I still get the willies thinking about it.

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They may be called conservation or wildlife officers these days, or “bunny cops” behind their backs, but these guys carry guns and have full police powers.

They wanted to know what I knew, and if I was in on the dirty deed.

It was December, about 20 degrees outside and not much warmer in the cabin, but I was reeking of sweat.

Stonewalling is not my strong suit. The coppers come to my door and I’ll admit to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby and whacking Jimmy Hoffa.

What happened was the game wardens nabbed the guy I was hunting with for allegedly taking a second buck in those long ago days when one deer a year was the rule.

They separated us to see if our stories jived. Cop tactics 101.

Turns out my hunting companion that day indeed shot a nice buck earlier in the season and didn’t tag or report it.

But he had his picture with the big-racked deer in his local company’s newsletter…and then went off hunting again.

Not too smart.

The wardens agreed that I was a literal “babe in the woods” who had no idea what this guy had done and let me go.

The culprit, a longtime family acquaintance, also shot his beagle while hunting rabbits and considered firing a shotgun into a creek to stun brook trout to the surface for easy pickings nothing out of the ordinary.

I haven’t hunted or fished with him the 40 years since and although he lives 15 minutes from my camp and he and his wife come over for a cookout now and again, I have no intention of doing so ever again.

Those who break the game laws are thieves pure and simple and are stealing from the rest of us who try to play by the rules.

A story out of New York State reports that four anglers face “felony charges” for spearing striped bass.

“Felony” is a heart-stopping word for those of us who shudder at points for driving violations.

According to the NYDEC these brazen nitwits speared 74 stripers, with obvious wounds. This is an illegal method of taking a fine game fish. The value of the stuck fish was estimated at $4,632. Felony charges can be filed when the value exceeds $1,500. Perhaps these guys should have carried a calculator.

Here in New Jersey, CO’s nabbed some 25 “hunters” who tried to get around the earn-a-buck rules, which means you have to harvest a doe before you can hunt for a buck in certain zones.

In one case a guy brought in a buck to a butcher shop in North Jersey and CO’s asked where the doe was he was supposed to have downed first. The man said he had thrown away the hide, then changed his story to say a worker at the farm saw him take a doe, as required, first. The farm hand said the story was a lie and the hunter was busted.

A not uncommon sleight of hand on the Jersey Shore scene is that some party and charter boats have legal-sized fluke racks aboard from previous trips to show authorities when docking with fillets, the sub-legal carcasses tossed overboard.

A party boat out of Atlantic Highlands, DEP didn’t name the boat, but regulars probably know which vessel it is, was busted with a mandatory court appearance and fines up to $3,000.

And down in Gloucester County during the special Canada goose season, ninnies were illegally duck hunting and without federal or state stamps to boot.

HELPING HAND

Last week’s column gave hints on processing your deer. However in New Jersey you can harvest a lot of venison. An option is to donate some to Hunters Helping the Hungry. Go to www.huntershelpingthehungry.org for details.

HARD CORE

A 72-year-old hunter survived two weeks lost in the California woods by eating squirrels and other animals he shot and packing leaves and grasses around his body to stay warm says an AP report.

My take is you have at least a .22, gun laws or not, when heading into the boonies and a water source and you can survive.